Instead I became Contract Sales Manager for the merged department with the duty of negotiating large gas contracts with the major industrialists. No more engineering responsibilities although it was necessary to have as much technical knowledge as the customers had so that they couldn't pull the wool over my eyes.

My dealings were with top management of British Aerospace, Rolls Royce, British Rail, Tesco, Sainsbury and the like, hospital boards, government ministries etc. The gas contract with Vauxhall Motors was worth ten million pounds and British Sugar Corporation was nearly the same.

Ken Tooth gave me more or less a free hand, because I knew most of the customers, all his new staff and was the most experienced of all his people. I had to work within national guidelines and was in constant touch with British Gas Headquarters in London, so I knew everything which was going on in the country, could talk direct to other Gas Boards, and was privy to many commercial secrets which had to have the highest security.

Whilst I was doing this job there was a great increase in our industrial and commercial business, all according to plan, and I like to think that I played my part in the expansion of British Gas. Sometimes I seemed to be wanted everywhere at once - Norwich, Ipswich, London Headquarters, Bedford, Tottenham, Harlow, Peterborough. There were some very hard negotiations to be done, each involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. To get round to all of these it was often necessary to be on the road at 6 o'clock in the morning and stay overnight in an hotel to go on to a different place the next day. East Anglia is very big, and the roads were not all that good at that time.

It was sometimes necessary for me to talk direct to the Board Chairman and Deputy Chairman, sometimes bypassing my own Director - not a good thing - and sometimes I had to tell all three that what I was doing was approved by National Headquarters, even if not by them. Not the best of arrangements!

Late in 1981 there was a further spate of musical chairs brought about by the sudden promotion of our Director to become Deputy Chairman of another region. There was no need for restructuring and everyone at the top moved up one. My own Boss, Ken Tooth, went up a level into a different type of job, and his was vacant.

I was then 61 and there was still this tendency to create younger managers, but I applied and was interviewed.

"We know all about you, Uncle Ron" said the new Director. "Just tell us why we should choose you." The new Marketing Manager, Alan Johnson, had only come to us from Wales Gas two months before and the appointment was for his right hand man. He too was in his early forties.

"Right" said I, "I've no doubt you've got a big re-organisation in mind, but it's not in our Department, and you haven't been here long enough to get to know what's what and who's who in this Region. I'm the most experienced man here for this job, and I know the whole region and it's customers backwards. I doubt if you'll get many men with my qualifications to apply from other regions, because I know all the likely applicants and their ambitions. They won't want to come here because of the high cost of living and housing. I've already completed forty-four years of service, with no pension problem. If you find that I'm not really the man you want after two years you can get rid of me quite easily - I won't mind. It should be a good deal for you, and leave you to solve your other problems without worrying about me."

It was an offer they couldn't refuse. I became Godfather of three departments, all brought together for the first time - they gave me the Development Section as well. Although it had always worked solely for us, and regarded by us as ours, it had always belonged to someone else, although being set up by us in the first place. I had an overall staff of about one hundred and twenty, including clerks, engineers, fitters, workshops, graduate trainees.

My immediate brief was to make eight engineers redundant, with good compensation payments, all in their early 60's, friends and colleagues of mine for many years. This went fairly smoothly in spite of ritual Union noises. The N.A.L.G.O. negotiator who made the biggest fuss was an idealogical woman recently out of university with her head filled with standard Leftish view. She got herself pregnant by her boss and disappeared in a cloud of disapproval from her members. She must have missed out on a few lessons at college about life.

Everyone of these men I made redundant, plus some others who volunteered told me afterwards that they had been looking forward to early retirement, provided the price was right, and were perfectly happy. There was some sadness attached because the wives of two of them died a few days afterwards, and Bill Cross, my 'Terrible Twin' died about a year later. I had suspected all along that he volunteered because he knew he was ill, and his wife, Vicky, told me this at his funeral.

I also had to find a new site for my Development Section at the former Gas Works at Dunstable. It had been built there because the first supply of natural gas in Eastern Board had been brought there so that the isolated villages of Totternhoe and Eaton Bray could be converted quickly as a trial run. We had very large quantities of natural gas available so that experimental and development work could be done for certain industrial processes on a National basis. The South Beds Council Offices have been built on this site and were opened in 1989.

There is not much more to say about work because it was very much the same as I had been doing all my life, but I had gone up the ladder all the time and reached a far higher level than my Mentor, Sid King. I was responsible for a sales revenue of over one hundred million pounds every year, and sat on two National Committees responsible for more than half the turnover of British Gas, which decided National Policy and couldn't be challenged very easily by Board Chairmen.

At the end of 1982 Marjorie's health deteriorated and she had a heart attack in the night after our Wedding Anniversary Dinner at the Old Palace Lodge. She recovered after a few days in Intensive Care and some weeks of rest at home. I went to see the Director and said I wanted to retire early, reminding him that at my interview I had reserved this option but would only do this in the event of Marjorie's worsening health.

We fixed on 3rd June 1983, which I picked deliberately because it would be the Fortieth Anniversary of walking out with Marjorie for the first time.

There are always retirement parties on these occasions, and I had one from each of the two National Committees at British Gas Headquarters and was presented with a cut glass decanter and tumblers. Also a presentation booklet with a painting of my original Tottenham Office from 1936, and one of Eastern Region Headquarters at Potters Bar. There is a great deal of difference between the two buildings, showing how times have changed - the Tottenham one (by the way almost opposite Tottenham Hotspur Football Ground) has tramlines outside, and the other has an impressive array of aerials.

Eastern Gas Marketing Committee threw a party in an hotel and many of my old colleagues from Tottenham, now retired, came to see me off. They gave me a water colour painted by Gordon Hales, himself retired several years before. Gordon is a well known professional artist and has exhibited at the Royal Academy. During the War he served in Italy, as I did, and was left for dead on the battlefield, reported as dead by the War Office, and his local newspaper. His family were very surprised when he turned up alive with only a bullet hole in each cheek where the bullet had gone straight through missing his teeth. He carries the newspaper cutting with him all the time, and when he has had a few drinks brings it out and asks what it feels like to be talking to a ghost.

I went to lunch with the Directors and the Chairman, who was himself due to retire a few months later.

I knew that the final official presentation on my last day would be a big occasion, attended by over a hundred people because I was a Senior Manager, and I decided that Marjorie should not come. It would have been too stressful for her, Director's Lunch, backslapping, hand-shaking, speeches, etc. I had been to scores of these last day parties and knew exactly what to expect.

There had been the usual collection and instead of a lawnmower or set of electric tools, which most people seemed to want, I settled for the silver rose vase and the silver photograph frame which now holds the two original Wartime pictures of us together, June 3rd and July 3rd 1943. They will last for ever, and I can look at them every day.

People have to work in order to live, and work can be very boring as well as tiring, otherwise we would do it gladly without pay just to keep our minds and bodies occupied. My own job had always been interesting. I had been inside hundreds of factories and seen how things are made and helped to improve methods and reduce production costs. I have met and talked to hundreds of people in factories and commerce at all levels, from the bench right up to their boardrooms.

It was all over. I had reached the top of my chosen profession, and achieved more than most of the original Pre-War 'A' Apprentices, some of whom had actually worked under me. Only two of the 'A's had reached the dizzy heights of top management at Board Headquarters - myself and Ted Hamer, four years my senior. Several had become Area or Divisional Managers in Eastern Gas or other Boards. There were not all that many of us - an intake of two or three a year from 1926 to 1948, but none in the six War years. More than three-quarters of them are dead; the rest are retired. We were always a well-knit gang. There are five of us in the photograph taken at Birmingham on the Post-War Retraining Course. I like to think that I was looked on with respect by colleagues in my own Board, and elsewhere.